Stroke-related education to emergency department staff: An acute stroke care quality improvement initiative

Reducing intravenous thrombolysis delay in acute ischemic stroke through a quality improvement program in the emergency department

Objective

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a quality improvement program for reducing intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) delay in acute ischemic stroke (AIS).

Materials and methods

We implement a quality improvement program consisting of 10 interventions for reducing IVT delay, including the establishment of an acute stroke team, standardized management of stroke teams, popularization of stroke and its treatment, emergency bypass route (BER), the achievement of computed tomography (CT) priority, no-delay CT interpretation, intravenous thrombolysis on the CT table, payment after treatment, whole recording, and incentive policy. We retrospectively analyzed the clinical time and outcome data of AIS patients treated with IVT in pre-intervention (108 patients) and post-intervention groups (598 patients), and further compared the differences between the non-emergency bypass route (NBER) and BER in the post-intervention group.

Results

The thrombolysis rate increased from ~29% in the pre-intervention group to 48% in the post-intervention group. Compared with the pre-intervention group, the median of door-to-needle time (DNT) was greatly shortened from 95 to 26 min (P < 0.001), door-to-CT time (DCT) was noticeably decreased from 20 to 18 min (P < 0.001), and onset-to-needle time (OTT) significantly declined from 206 to 133 min (P = 0.001). Under the new mode after the intervention, we further analyzed the IVT delay difference between the NBER (518 patients) and BER groups (80 patients) from the post-intervention group. The median values of DNT (18 vs. 27 min, P < 0.001), DCT (10 vs. 19 min, P < 0.001), and OTT (99 vs. 143 min, P < 0.001) showed significant reductions in the BER group. The quality improvement program under the emergency platform successfully controlled the median of DNT to within 26 min.

Conclusions

Collectively, the BER mode is a feasible scheme that greatly decreased DNT in AIS patients, and the secret to success was to accomplish as much as possible before the patient arrives at the emergency room.

The SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic and challenges in stroke care in India

Stroke care in India has evolved rapidly in the last decade with a focus on stroke awareness, prevention, rapid triage, treatment, and rehabilitation. But acute stroke care and poststroke rehabilitation in the country have limitations owing to the economic constraints and poor access to health care. The SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic has made stroke care even more challenging. We outline the unfavorable circumstances in stroke care induced by the pandemic; propose mitigating measures; crisis management; and provide a comparative evaluation of stroke care between India and the United States during the pandemic. There is a need for public health systems in both developed and developing countries to improve awareness, implement proper strategies of triage, acute treatment, well-defined rehabilitation plans, telemedicine services, and virtual check-ins.